Pro Russian Serbian volunteers help patrol Crimea roads

STORY: Five volunteers from Serbia joined pro-Russian self-defence groups on Thursday (March 6) in patrolling roads leading to the port city of Sevastopol, home to the Russian Black Sea fleet based in the Crimean peninsula.

A road block near the village of Goncharnoye was also controlled by Cossacks from southern Russia.

The Serbs were wearing the insignia of a nationalist Chetnik movement originating from the early 20th century during the time when Serbs were fighting Ottoman rule. The movement was also a World War Two nationalist and monarchist Serb paramilitary organisation.

The Chetnik Movement, based on the idea of a Greater Serbia was banned in post-World War Two Yugoslavia but re-emerged as a notorious nationalist movement during the Balkan war in 1990s.

The Serbs said they had travelled to Crimea at the invitation of Russian Cossacks, a nationalist group that the Chetniks say shares similar views.